Of the 17439 days I have been alive, there have been 418,527 hours up until 3 pm today. Of those hours, 10,000 of them my feet have been off the ground in general aviation aircraft. What I have been doing up there has been a mix of flight training, flying on my own or with friends and family as a pilot, flying as a flight instructor for others, or providing practical tests for people finishing a phase in their own training.

This equates to 2.39% of my life.

I know there are lots of other people who do or will have more flight time than me, and honestly, not all of this time for me is “logged” because I don’t log time when I am acting as an examiner. But it really just felt like a milestone moment today.

The best part is that I still am completely in love with the feeling of leaving the earthly bounds. I love being in the air, looking down at this amazing planet we get to all share.

I am still amazed at how for literally thousands of years people dreamed of flying, and somehow we have the fortune of living in a time when doing so is fully achievable. And it isn’t something is limited to just a few of the super-rich in the world. A large number of people get the opportunity to experience flying as a passenger. Less, but still a pretty darn significant number of people get to fly aircraft on their own and professionally as a job.

What an amazing thing. There are so many worse jobs in this world I could be doing. So having done it for, now 10,000 total hours of defying gravity flying time, I thought it was special. It is a very unique and rewarding opportunity I get to have every time I get to fly. And I can’t say thanks enough to my parents who let me start this process, my instructors who helped me along the way, and each and every person who I have had the opportunity to share the sky with being a part of all the memories.

Now. Time to do it some more!

Oh, and I just had to post this shadow landing my wife caught today when we came back to the ground.